The "L'Incanto" exhibition gives us the opportunity to be witnesses of the majestic beauty of art and allows us to learn about the artistic path taken by Ido Erani e Leonardo Lucchi in their long and prestigious career. I would like to thank the Acting Mayor Dr. Paolo Brunetti, the Councilor for Culture and Tourism Dr. Irene Vittoria Calabrò, the Director of the Culture sector Dr. Loredana Pace. The profound sensitivity of the Municipality of Reggio Calabria, which has always been attentive to the development of the cultural sector in its various forms, has made it possible to give life to this important initiative that opens the doors of the main cultural centers of the city. The exhibition, which brings together for the first time two great masters such as Lucchi and Erani, takes on greater value if contextualized in the period we are experiencing. The pandemic has, in fact, also rarefied the art world which traditionally requires direct interaction between the work of art and the public. To overcome the vulnerabilities that have emerged in these uncertain times, there is a particular need for the future and new perspectives. We firmly believe that beauty, art and culture are the only heritage that we can bequeath to future generations. The rich artistic contemporaneity is combined in this exhibition with what has been inherited from past centuries, convinced that art, as the most profound expression of man, is not only an aesthetic operation but a form of magic destined, as Picasso said, to shake from animates the dust accumulated in everyday life. The intellectual power of these two artists makes each of us spectators of an enchanting mystery.
Antonio Lagioia - SanGiorgioArte Artistic Director
VERNISSAGE 5 MARCH 2022 - Reggio Calabrito
18.00 Aragonese castle
20.00 The L'Accademia Gourmet Art Gallery
Epoch 2. The disruptive beauty of art contaminates the city
The number 2 is the expression of duality and in this we find the true essence of its meaning. Two like the most famous Bronze warriors in the world, two like the main locations, two like the selected artists, two like the exhibitions that will be set up, two like the 2022 year that marks an important milestone for the Riace Bronzes, warriors of opposites : one strong and aggressive in the eyes, the other more "docile" and wise. Two like the "epochs" resulting from their discovery. Emerged from the water, in fact, they constituted a real watershed for an entire city and for an entire community because their arrival changed everything and in the eyes of the world the city was no longer the same. The Bronzes gave Reggio Calabria a second chance to show itself in all its forgotten beauty. The accidental discovery occurred on August 16, 1972 and the decision to expose them inside the National archeologic museum, marked the second epoch for a city that was already the cradle of civilization, but from that moment on also the keeper of the Bronzes and therefore projected towards world recognition. Epoca 2 is an ambitious project that contaminates the city, its symbolic places, and insinuates itself among the people as a strong, disruptive presence that communicates thanks to the works of art on display. It is the synthesis of the beginning, of the amazement, of the story of Reggio celebrated by art whose initial beat comes from the sea, from the mystery that delivers priceless treasures and returns them to the passage of time and it is precisely in this time that the exhibition takes place. The Enchantment. In front of the works of Ido Erani e Leonardo Lucchi, two profoundly different artists, one cannot help but remain immobile. The human figures are soft, dynamic in spite of the materiality that connotes them; they let themselves be contemplated, admired, "undressed" happy to get naked. 67 works scattered in the "rooms" of the city, in the most ancient corners, in those spaces that tell of glory and battles and become the silent witnesses. Epoca 2 is therefore an forgetful memory of what we have been; proud testimony of who we are; hope determined and aware of the path that we can, want and must undertake since it is the art that opens our mind. In fact, it gives us relief from the narrow boredom of the will, revolutionizes our destinies. “The true work of art guides us (…) [towards] what exists forever and each time it does so with innumerable signs”, wrote Schopenhauer in 1851: two of these signs are the Riace Bronzes.
Elmar Elisabetta Marcianò and Antonino Labate, THE curators
